by Maggie Ford
True to their word, the pair came home in early February, but still there was no contact. His refusal to finance Geoffrey’s cruise probably still rankled, and they wouldn’t leave it at that. It would come to a head sometime, he reasoned. So he wasn’t surprised when Pam, on her own, came marching into the restaurant one late February morning saying that she wanted a word with him. Not discreetly, not even with a please, but demandingly and in full hearing of all those having coffee. There was no doubt by her manner that she’d been brooding all this time over his own earlier attitude, and like badly fermented wine ready to blow its cork, no sooner had she uttered the normal salutatory opening – that in itself more a command than a greeting – than hers blew.
“Good morning, Henry.”
He blinked at the harsh tone, the set expression, but nevertheless smiled. “Why, hello, Pam. What brings you here? Where’s Geoffrey?”
“Henry, I want to speak to you.”
Henry stalled. “Did you enjoy your holiday? When did you get back?”
Already anticipating that look on her face, he guided her hastily away from the restaurant as he spoke, going up the gilt stairs with her to the less occupied dance floor area where only a few businessmen quietly conversed with each other at the bar or at one or two of the little round tables around the perimeter of the carpeted, oval-shaped upper area.
Gaining the balcony above the main restaurant, he saw it was deserted but for a couple coming through the main glass doors above a flight of eight steps, Mary welcoming them. In a moment they would descend the stairs to be conducted by William down the second more ornate flight to the restaurant itself and shown to a table.
Henry, having managed to get Pam out of hearing and hopefully out of sight before she could say what she had undoubtedly come to say, took his eyes off Mary to ask Pam the obvious: “Is something wrong?”
In answer, she uttered a single word – “Mary.” Her tone was deliberately offensive.
Henry reached into his breast pocket for his cigarette case. “What about her?”
“I should have thought that was obvious,” she said.
Henry shook his head, extracting a Player’s Navy. These days only the strongest kind could satisfy his smoke-congested needs.
“I don’t understand. What’s obvious?”
“You. And Mary.” He made a pretence of a frown of perplexity, but Pam was forging on. “New Year’s Eve 1933? Remember?”
Henry shook his head. “What am I supposed to remember from over a year ago?”
“I think you know, Henry, so there’s no point my wasting time jogging your memory. I was happy to let things go, what you and she get up to being your business, except I did wonder if her husband was aware of it.”
“Now wait a minute, Pam…”
“But when you behave towards Geoffrey as though he’s a naughty child you’re withholding sweets from, then I begin to ask myself why you should consider yourself so lily white that you can treat others as though they’re tarnished through and through. So Geoffrey spends more than he should. At least he’s not having an affair behind his wife’s back and doing someone else’s husband down at the same time.”
“Now look here, Pam. I’m not—”
“This is when I feel a few things need sorting out.”
She had paused for effect, watched as Henry attempted to cover the uncomfortable moment by lighting up, sucking in a deeper breath than even he normally would and blowing out a thick cloud of smoke. Meeting her eyes through the haze, he said as casually as he could, “I’m sorry, but you’re reading more into something than need be.”
“Am I?” It was a direct accusation he couldn’t combat any further.
He heard himself blustering, “What’re you asking of me, then?”
“Geoffrey means to take me off on that cruise, no matter what. But it depends on whether or not he has money enough. I think you hold the key to that, don’t you?”
Blackmail. The word hammered through his head. She had the power to tell both Grace and William. William wouldn’t be that surprised, he felt. Hurt maybe, but not surprised. He had known when he married her how things had stood between himself and Mary, had consented to step in and prevent the scandal that would have had Grace finding out just how far the affair, brief as it had been, had gone. It was mostly Grace – quiet, modest, loyal, if not passionate – who concerned him. Should any hint of his having a child by Mary ever reach her it would slay her. Slay him too.
He felt his body sag. He sucked in a desperate lungful of cigarette smoke to steady his nerves.
“How much would he need?”
“Four thousand.”
Henry gulped. “Four…You’re only going on a cruise.”
“Expenses. New York. A place like that runs away with money.”
“Expenses are up to you, Pam.” Smoke drifted from his mouth and nostrils. “Anyway, they’d never come to anything near that much.”
“They could come to even more, depending on, well… things.”
Henry’s lungs seemed to be choking him, as though the smoke still in them had become trapped, making him feel he might vomit any moment. Suddenly his lungs released his breath in an explosion of smoke, and with it the moment of panic. Strength and resolve took its place.
“I refuse to be blackmailed, Pam. That’s what you’re up to.” It wouldn’t stop there, once he gave in. How much did she know? Not all that much, he was sure. “You’ve no proof of anything but what you imagine.”
“I don’t need proof. I merely need to sow a few seeds of truth in certain ears. It is the truth, Henry. And such a shock for some. It would be for your wife.”
He could see Mary looking at them. From where she was she could gauge their facial expressions, their tense stance, and surmise that all wasn’t well. Feeling sick again, he stubbed out his cigarette in a chrome ashtray attached to the wall, and immediately reached for another. Keeping his face expressionless he regarded Pam and said slowly, “You’re a real prize bitch, Pam. Geoffrey doesn’t deserve you. One day you’ll do him down too.”
He saw the gleam of triumph in her eyes, wide and blue and feigning innocence. “Henry, all I know is that it is really generous of you to consider helping Geoffrey out this way. You have always been a good brother to him. What he would have done without you at times, I’m sure I don’t know.”
On the point of moving away, she paused. “Thanks so much, Henry darling. I know Geoffrey will be grateful. And if he finds money running out while we’re in New York – new jewellery is always needed and decent stuff can cost such a lot – that, and having to mix with nice people on board ship – I know you’ll be the first to advance him a little more. Of course, he won’t prevail on you too drastically. See you later.”
Stealing a glance at Mary, speaking to another couple as Pam, tall and elegant, tripped lightly up the flight of marble stairs, Henry saw her nod to the other woman who hardly bothered to respond as she went past her.
Hardly had Pam departed than Henry was cursing himself for a fool. He should have bluffed it out, he whose business instincts seldom let anything get past him. That’s what had kept him going all these years, had made Letts the restaurant it was despite depression, banks’ attempts to foreclose on him, Geoffrey’s drain on profits in his love of high living. But Geoffrey always had been his Achilles heel one way or another. The shock of Pam’s confrontation, her audacity, glimpsing Mary looking at him, he reeling with disbelief that a member of his own family could stoop to blackmail, had all culminated in making him commit himself before pausing to think. Asking how much Geoffrey needed, and calling her a prize bitch – if that had not been playing into her hands, what was? Fool!
Mary, coming down the stairs, her face creased a little by confusion, interrupted his self-anger. Over the years her sweetly animated features had settled to smooth maturity, her poise and elegance despite her small stature causing heads to turn, those steady grey eyes compelling a second glance. His heart leapt with
adoration as she came to gaze up into his face.
“What’s the matter with Geoffrey’s wife? I know we’re not exactly close friends, but she cut me dead, both times, coming in and leaving. I haven’t offended her, have I?”
For a moment she looked the young girl he’d first set his eyes on and he felt an immediate need to protect her. “It’s nothing you’ve done. You know what she’s like, always full of her own importance.”
“You both looked so serious. Then Pam walking right by me, I thought there might be some trouble – in the family or something.”
“No, nothing.” He hastened to sound casual. “Just Geoffrey wanting to spend money before he gets it, and Pam fighting his comer for him.”
“Well, I hope you didn’t give in to her. Though I know you didn’t because she would have given me a smile when she left. By the way, darling, it’s Friday. I’ll see you as usual?”
There should have been no need for her to ask. Their affair had gradually settled into a pattern of seeing each other every Friday night. In the tiny flat he rented they would make love, feverishly, making up for the days without each other. Afterwards they would go to a theatre or a cinema, eat, then back to the flat to make love again a little less feverishly. They’d leave around half-past midnight, he heading back to his penthouse and Grace who, going to bed at ten thirty, never heard him come in; Mary to her flat, Helen and the nanny she employed, also asleep. Mary always insisted on being there when William came in from his work.
Sometimes he wondered just how much William knew. William knew that he took Mary out on Friday evenings and now and again expressed his gratitude. But for him to find out what really went on didn’t bear thinking about.
“It is good of you, Henry, putting yourself out for Mary,” he’d say on occasion. “I hope your wife doesn’t object, but it gets Mary out of herself.”
“No trouble, old man,” Henry would reply, guilt rising in a hot wave to his cheeks. “Only too glad. You both work so hard. Least, one can do.”
William would nod, but his gratitude often seemed mixed with an odd perspicacity which Henry could not fathom or dare to voice.
The rest of the week he and Mary kept apart. It tore at him not being able to see her, but their weekly meetings, for all they were only once a week, made up for all the time they were apart. For lovers it was an inadequate arrangement but with no other choice, he knew he must content himself and that their affair was all the sweeter for the waiting. They both agreed on that.
At this moment Mary appeared to have been made faintly unsure by what she had witnessed, to his mind reading into it something that might concern them. He hoped not. He hurried to reassure her.
“Of course, darling.” He mouthed the word “darling”, seeing William coming up the gilt staircase, and was relieved when she moved off, straight-faced, to return to the reception area.
* * *
“You’re quiet, Henry,” Mary said as they came away from the cinema. “I’ve not upset you, have I?”
She must have been tired earlier. She had sighed, when he’d made love to her, said it was becoming rather like tradition to be made love to regularly at seven o’clock on a Friday evening. He had been concerned. He was concerned now, put comforting pressure on the arm tucked through his. “Nothing you could ever do or say would upset me.”
“I’m sorry about earlier,” she said. “Is that what has made you quiet? Perhaps we shouldn’t have gone out.”
But she’d wanted to see the film, The Gay Divorcee, with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. To stay in would have been even more fraught for him, Pam’s threats still with him. It had been an effort to appear at ease and the film had at least provided him with something to talk about, relating how he had once met Astaire, twelve years ago, before Hollywood claimed him. A young man at the time, still smarting with humiliation, coming into the restaurant for supper after a performance of his London stage success Stop Flirting, he had angrily let slip to Henry that having admired the white waistcoat of the best-dressed man in town, the Prince of Wales, he’d visited the prince’s own outfitters, Hawes and Curtis, to be politely told to follow that royal person’s style elsewhere.
Henry’s tale had lightened the moment only briefly before the events of this morning came creeping back, giving him little to laugh about or even to inspire conversation. He thought too of William’s words when he had offered to treat Mary to an evening at the cinema.
“She certainly needs an outing. And I know she’s in safe hands.”
Had it been guilt-ridden conscience that left him imagining a slight edge to that remark? William, aware of his past affair with Mary, had agreed to marry her and give his name to their child; it would be foolish not to imagine that he never paused once in a while to wonder if that relationship still smouldered. If he did, he gave no sign, except that at times there would be an edge to his tone, like this evening.
Now this unsavoury business with Pamela. If word of his infidelity were ever to reach Grace… With all this on his mind it was hard to be bright and cheerful. Of course he was going to have to alert Mary to this threat of blackmail. They must both be on their guard now.
Making up his mind he took Mary back to their secret apartment. He would tell her after making love. No point spoiling it with bad news. Love was made a little frantically, with a feeling that it might be their last time together if Pam ever let the cat get out of the bag. But he had no intention of letting that happen. Tomorrow he would give Geoffrey a cheque, see the surprise and delight in his eyes. Surprise, though? He wasn’t sure. Would Pam tell him what she had done? If she did, would he be appalled? Perhaps he should enlighten Geoffrey as to the reason for his change of heart. But would he believe him, believe such a foul thing of Pam? Pam would deny it and he’d believe her. Then where would that leave him in Geoffrey’s eyes?
A thousand questions marred the usual perfection and joy of his climax with Mary. Nor did he feel as fulfilled as he usually did, though Mary seemed happy, relaxing back, a smile curving her lips from which issued forth a small sigh of contentment. “Mmm.”
He lay beside her in the tiny, cosy bed-sitting room, staring at the ceiling, his usual drowsy contentment absent. He could not tell Mary and spoil her happiness, her certainty of that future which he imagined her seeing behind those gently closed eyelids as enfolding she and he forever.
* * *
Helen was as excited as any child could possibly be. Tables had been laid all the way along the mews making one single surface laden with jellies and cakes and dainty little sandwiches made by the women of the luxury flats all around, or more likely by their staff.
Along both sides of the tables sat the children, in celebration of the silver jubilee of Their Majesties’ reign. The girls wore pink and white party frocks, most of them expensively bought for this occasion, their hair curled and beribboned, socks pure white, shoes neat and tidy. The boys were dressed in little blue or grey suits, well pressed short trousers, their socks pulled up straight as drainpipes, not a wrinkle to be seen – and if there was, it would instantly be yanked straight by a parent – shoes polished to a finer-than-fine shine, not a hair of any head out of place, well slicked down by a father’s brilliantine.
It was a national holiday, and all across London, across the whole nation, whole streets strung with Union Jacks and red, white and blue bunting displayed similar tables lined with children while mothers looked on, comforting the tearful, curbing the boisterous and waiting on their own and each other’s youngsters, every community bent on having the best time ever.
Only in the way they lived did they differ. The children of the upper class, whose parents no doubt had been included on the royal invitation list, were enjoying sedate private parties of their own in the exclusive grounds of their parents’ country seats, waited upon by armies of servants. In back streets of every city slum, children wore the best of their hand-me-downs, their fathers having no money for shiny boots, their mothers, in aprons faded by lon
g use, hair just released from curlers, squawking at them to shut their gobs and eat up, food not to be wasted when tomorrow it would only be bread and scrape. In the north, women with arms folded across a shawl about their shoulders gossiped in groups. In villages, fetes were going strong. In the West Country, organised dancing was taking place. In Wales they sang and in Scotland bagpipes were being played – or more likely tortured – by any who saw himself as a musician.
Here in this usually quiet mews snuggled between St James’s Street and Pall Mall, those mothers who hadn’t lowered themselves to take their children to mingle with the biggest multitude since Armistice Day watching the procession accompanying the King and Queen to St Paul’s in the twenty-fifth year of their reign stood a little aloof from each other as though contact would make them less aware of their upper middle-class station in life. Here, under normal circumstances, they seldom bumped into each other, left their homes in taxis or hubby’s limousine, returned the same way, had maids to do the shopping, saw more of friends than neighbours, wrapped up in their own little worlds.
Mary recalled the close community of her childhood, the back streets of Soho where prim and seamy rubbed shoulders. She thought of William’s people. In Shoreditch they were doing the same as here, only there’d be a piano brought out to entertain everyone, later an onslaught of ribald songs, glasses being filled with beer from barrels from nearby pubs, the smell of fish and chips, saveloys and mustard, pease pudding and faggots, vinegar and pickled gherkins pervading.
Here, there’d be a small glass or two of wine. Nannies would take their charges home, parents would go out to dinner, celebrating in their own way. Mary hoped Will might take her out too for a break, a short stroll to Buckingham Palace where there would probably still be crowds making merry. Maybe on into Hyde Park where around ten o’clock the King would press a button to light a celebration bonfire, a signal for around two thousand other bonfires across the country to be lit. London itself would be as bright as day with every important building floodlit. She didn’t want to stay indoors and have it all pass her by.
